Does God Hate Divorce? Malachi 2:16

I recently heard an interesting discussion about the contested text and meaning of the (in)famous Malachi 2:16 reading that "God hates divorce," so I wanted to take a closer look. 

כִּֽי־שָׂנֵ֣א שַׁלַּ֗ח אָמַ֤ר יְהוָה֙ אֱלֹהֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וְכִסָּ֤ה חָמָס֙ עַל־לְבוּשׁ֔וֹ אָמַ֖ר יְהוָ֣ה צְבָא֑וֹת וְנִשְׁמַרְתֶּ֥ם בְּרוּחֲכֶ֖ם וְלֹ֥א תִבְגֹּֽדוּ׃

For I hate (Cn: Heb he hates) divorce, says the LORD, the God of Israel, and covering one’s garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless. (NRSV)

כִּֽי־שָׂנֵ֣א שַׁלַּ֗ח MT ] כי אם שנתה שלח DSS-4Q76 ἀλλὰ ἐὰν μισήσας ἐξαποστείλῃς LXX cum odio habueris dimite V אֲרֵי אִם סְנֵית/סְנֵיתָ/סני את) לַה פַטרַה) T | > S | prb l שׂנאתִי BHS.

In this case, the MT is somewhat unclear and ambiguous. The verb seems to be third person and could perhaps be read as "he hates divorcing" (with God as implied subject) or even "he hates (and) divorces" (with the faithless one as implied subject). But in the grammatical context, there is no obvious third person masculine antecedent. The faithless one is addressed in the second person in the previous verse, but if this clause is quoted divine speech ("says the LORD"), we would probably expect the first person if God were the subject.

Because of the awkwardness of the MT, some have emended to שׂנאתִי (with BHS) to smooth out the grammar, yielding "I hate divorcing" (with God as subject). Alternatively, others have read the verb as a participle with implied first person pronoun, yielding "(I) am hating divorcing," with similar meaning. The Syriac Peshitta apparently just omitted the whole problematic text, which probably attests to the difficulty already in antiquity, long before our earliest Masoretic manuscripts. 

A serious textual alternative comes from the common second person reading of 4Q76 (4QXIIa), the LXX, Vulgate, and Targum Jonathan. The Hebrew grammar of 4Q76 is still awkward, but the idea can perhaps be rendered roughly as "if you hate (her), divorcing (her)" or "if you hate (her), (and you) divorce (her)" (faithless as subject). The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible translates it, "For if you hate and divorce." The LXX and Vulgate understand the text in the same way, with both verbs understood as something the faithless one is doing. NETS reads, "But if, since you hate her, you should send her away." The Targum situation is a bit complicated by the lack of a good critical edition, but seems to support the second person tradition of reading. Of the three variants I noted from the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon entry and Safaria, סְנֵיתָ and סני את are unambiguously second person "you hate." The reading סְנֵית could potentially be read as "I hate" or "you hate," depending on the dialect (I'd have to look into the grammar of Targum Jonathan more closely).

The agreement of all of these witnesses against MT is indeed impressive, but I admit I am very skeptical. It is easy for me to see how the second person readings could arise as exegetical clarifications of a difficult, ambiguous text. But it is very difficult for me to imagine anyone creating the MT text from the second person readings. Omission of אם seems less likely than grammatical facilitation. The reading שנתה also reflects a common, non-etymological orthography that is highly suspect. I suppose א and ת were easily confused in the old Hebrew script, but I'm still dubious that the MT can be derived reasonably from the other reading. It is worth pointing out that the LXX also translates the awkward third person jussive in וּבְאֵ֥שֶׁת נְעוּרֶ֖יךָ אַל־יִבְגֹּֽד "and against the wife of your youth let him not deal treacherously" at the end of v. 15 with the second person ἐγκαταλίπῃς, showing that the problem of referent actually starts in v. 15 and is clarified throughout by the LXX. Similarly, BHQ reads "The difficulty perceived in M is its apparent inconsistency with the provision for divorce in Deut 24:1. 4QXIIa follows the same tradition of Jewish exegesis as reflected in T (so also G and V), while S adopts the simpler expedient of omission." It is worth pointing out that both T and V use imperatives meaning, "if you hate (her), divorce her!" I'm not really convinced of that reading, as I don't think it fits the context and the third person forms elsewhere in the verse. But perhaps this too could be a rhetorical challenge, more than a literal command to divorce the wives.

If we reject the second person "you hate" reading as exegetical, the question remains what to do with the earlier MT. As I see it now, it doesn't make much sense to render it with God as the subject, because the grammar of the third person self-reference would be highly awkward: "(God) hates divorcing, says the LORD". On the other hand, the third person reference to the faithless one as subject shows good continuation from v. 15 (where the faithless one is commanded indirectly in the third person not to betray his wife), and the collocation of the terms שנא and שלח are more naturally read as the normal process of despising and divorcing one's wife (cf. Deut 24:3, where the two terms are used in the same order). The real problem is why the final part of verse 15 וּבְאֵ֥שֶׁת נְעוּרֶ֖יךָ אַל־יִבְגֹּֽד shifts person reference mid-clause. But Mal 2:16 itself doesn't seem that problematic to me, even if grammatically a bit awkward.

So does God hate divorce? Probably... I can't imagine any divorce is ever completely untainted by at least one party's sin, even if it's the least bad option available. But does Mal 2:16 explicitly state that? Probably not, at least in an absolute sense. Whether we follow the MT or the second person interpretive reading, the exegetical tradition and most plausible reading of the text seems resoundingly in favor of interpreting this(/these) act(s) of hating and divorcing as something the unfaithful one is doing (or at least potentially doing). That said, if the unfaithful ones who divorce their wives are said to betray them and wrap themselves with violence, it still seems pretty clear that God is no fan of unjust divorce.